The Stranger, the End and the Beginning
by act-then-pens
Summary: The Doctor meets someone from his past and Amy meets herself from another dimension. Amy tells herself Rory is going to die. Can Amy save Rory? Or is Rory destined to die?
1. Chapter 1

The stranger, the end and the beginning.

Amy and the doctor were walking down a pact street being bustled and tussled on market day of 1786, traders were bartering, cows mooing and horses shitting, when suddenly a look of complete alarm took over the Doctor's face.

He turned to Amy and shouted 'Run!'

He began to run but Amy, startled was still standing fixed on the spot.

She felt his hand grab her arm and him repeating 'run' and she began to run, she turned her head to see what she was running from and fleetingly saw a man, old waving at them, she was sure, and shouting something she couldn't make out but sounded like 'hell'.

They ran and run, with the Doctor intermittently telling her to be quick. He turned and they ran into a house, a house full of many children and one startled mother.

'Sorry, we're here on' the Doctor began and he pulled out his psychic paper.

'Of course' she replied relieved 'I'll get the soup immediately'

Amy was about to relax when the Doctor pocked her with aspirations of 'quick, keep moving'.

They moved through the house coming to the back room with only a window.

'Now what?' she asked

'Window, quick... quicker'

He threw the window open and prompted Amy threw and then shoved her threw with aspersions of 'quick'. Himself he nimbly climbed out.

Irritated, muddy and tired and all the encouragement she got from the Doctor was 'quick'.

She went quicker, as quick as her fear would carry her, and she went quickly into the next home, quickly up the stair and quickly into the wardrobe.

Slowly she began 'Are you going…' only to be interrupted with a sssshhhh from the Doctor.

A minute passed by and Amy again tried to interrogate the Doctor to only be ssshhhed down again but this time she retorted with an eye-roll feeling silly trapped in a closet, a closet far to cramped for her comfort, hiding from an assailant who had to have been lost ages ago.

The slow creek of the door she heard, and the harsh sound of a boot walking across the floor, and the shadow she saw creeping in the slit of light into their small safe haven. Then the voice she heard, male it was, aged it be and of slow speech. 'Hello' it said ' hello is any body here, I thought … oh well'

Then she heard him leave. Amy was about to ask why they were running from a man trying to greet them when the doctor put his finger warningly against her lip and held it there. Eventually he dropped it and gave a little nod.

'You're going to ask who that was?' The Doctor said.

'Yes,' Amy Replied, 'but first I was going to ask, can we leave the closet?, it' just…'

They both suddenly became aware how aggressively close they were, their lips practically at a touch. The Doctor looked down and replied' yes'.

They got out with a lot more difficulty than they had getting in but they got out none the less, and Amy asked they question the doctor had foretold.

'Who was that' She asked, 'and why are we running from some saying 'hello'? Scary.'

'You have no idea' he retorted.

'What was he going to do? Greet us to death' she chuckled and on seeing the Doctor hadn't liked or got the joke she peevishly cattawolloped him with 'fine don't laugh'

Absentmindedly the Doctor replied 'what?'

'Oh, greeting in Scottish means…'

'I think I know my Scottish colloquialisms Amy' he replied with impertinence, while he scanned the door with his sonic screwdriver, then turning to her he continued, 'after all, I use to be Scottish, but this is no laughing matter. You have no idea how close we came', he put his fingers together for emphasis.

'Why' Scared Amy asked slowly, 'who was that?'

'That Amy, that was a time guardian, perhaps the most boring species all the universe of all time'.

'Is that all? She said with relieve and she felt the tension release from her body and she laughed.

'What, 'is that all', I just saved us from a most unprofitable boring conversation. It would have lasted hours and what if he'd wanted to stay the night. There just awful, the most tedious punctilious people in all Gallifrey, on and on they go explaining every fastidious detail, and they never take a hint about leave or notice how bored the other person is. Honestly we must be the most unluckiest people to run into one when we have all space and time to avoid them. Wait a minute, what was he doing here and how was he doing here?

'What…' Amy began to ask, but the doctor just kept on talking mostly to himself.

'… They're all suppose to be trapped on Gallifrey.'

Suddenly he was running out the door, running after the man they'd been trying so assiduously to escape from, leaving Amy flabbergasted and alone in an empty room. She mumbled to her 'fine I'll just stay here then' when The doctor popped his head back in the room and told her off with the word 'quick'. Right then, tired, irritable and with the eyebrow arched she could have thumped him but he was too dared quick.


	2. Chapter 2

They all sat around a small patio set, Amy, Rory, The Doctor and the Stranger, outside the Tardis. They were drinking tea, eating muffing and other accoutrements, all of which the Stranger had insisted they need for they're long talk, and all of this he a produced from a small hamper, although Amy assumed it must have been bigger on the inside as he'd already produced several chairs, a table, a working kettle and toaster (plugged in), along with the food.

'He's a time guardian and you're a time lord. So what is a time guardian?' Amy began after several cups of tea.

'Well…' the time guardian began to explain; in what I'm sure would have been a very long and detailed explanation in a didactic fashion. The doctor quickly cut off the Time Guardians to briefly explain the difference between a Time Guardian and a lord, which is such.

A long long time a ago, or maybe a long long time to come, you can never tell with time travel, the eye of time was discovered by a group of people and they decided to protect it, or guard it if you will. So they sat and stared at times eye contemplating its mysteries and to them the eye grated unnatural long life. However others decided to harness the power of the eye of time and discovered how to make time machines, called a Tardis, and travel the space-time vortex and have multiple adventures in infinite time and planets. So to them was grated multiple lifes and the power of regeneration.

'Well, I suppose that's the essentials of the story.' The Time Guardian said, 'except we found it first, then you young whippersnappers came along and completely disregarded our warnings…'

'Oh not this again,' the doctor moaned recalling a long held feud,' you never knew how to make a Tardis out of the bubble.

'Oh yes we did…'

'But you never did, thus proven you never could. If you could have made a time machine to transport you to any time and place in the universe, take you on untold adventures you would have, you were just a bunch of old fogies who stumbled on something too big for you to understand.'

'Now listed here you young happerdasher. Now listen to me. There was a reason we didn't build any Tardises. There was a reason. You have no idea how dangerous they are. Now did you know that if the core of the Tardis were to become unstable and explode it could cause a total event collapse, every sun would supernova at every moment in history, it would be as if the universe had never existed'

A sense of guilt pervaded the room and Amy and Rory gave each other extremely uncomfortable looks, however the Doctor replied' That would never happen' without a trace of bashfulness in his voice.

'Now I'll give you it's unlikely: 1 in a trillion but the risk was too great. If it were just a planet or even a solar system but all of past and future, that was too much to risk, we had no right.'

To explain a time guardian is a bit like to imagine a tortoise, slow and plodding and methodical in all matters. To imagine this time guardian, well. The Time Guardian had the look of a middle aged man, or more a middle aged librarian. He wore tweed and wool and wool and tweed, in the style of cardigans, sweater-vests and coats. He walked slow and talked slower. To describe his voice; To anyone who has every sat in a lecture hall listening, or more likely not listening or even more likely drifting of to sleep or even more likely asleep drooling from there mouth, as a middle aged man wearing a tweed coat delivers a monologue they need no description of a time guardians' voice, to those that haven't: long, slow and stuffy with soporific qualities would describe it best. So when he spoke to tell his tale in a voice long, slow, and stuffy with soporific qualities to The Doctor, Amy and Rory, it was Rory who was drifting off, Amy who was only half listening yet The Doctor sat not slumped in his chair with drool pooling on his chin but rapt with attention as the Time Guardian told them how he'd been able to escape the time bubble on Gallifrey by creating a portal in his Mirror which allowed him access to any other reflecting device and how he could leave it at any point in it history, from great lakes of years untold or birthday mirror new broken in a week.

The Doctor sat rapt, but not did he listen happily to the story told him, as an angry face seemed to fall more steadily on his face until he broke the story.

'This is catastrophic!' 'The doctor said, said with that rage rarely seen, 'anyone inside the bubble can just walk out. Do you know what you've done? I trapped those in there for a reason, your boring conversations the least of them. Now you've just opened up a gateway for any of them to leave, do you understand the peril you've released on the rest of the universe?'

'Well hold on there,' He replied rather calmly, as if not sensing even his own peril, 'you're getting ahead of yourself, I can't imagine the quite colourful doomsdays scenario you've draw up is going to happen. Besides the portal closes as soon as one stops looking at it'

'I don't think you can imagine very much'.

'Well be that as it may, it took me over 300 hundred years to convolute my theory and put it to action. Now I don't think there's anyone else possessed enough to look at themselves in the mirror for 300 years.'

'I don't know, I think I could think of someone' Rory joked.

Hey' both the Doctor and Amy chimed in simultaneously offended.

'Ok, two people' Rory hit back.

Then The Doctor turned to the time guardian with a face he rarely wore, face that showed fear, genuine fear.

'Are you sure?' he emphasized each word.

'Sure that I'm the only being that's thought of this theory' he replied 'and had the patience to extrapolate it into reality. Do you know how many nights I spend staring into my own reflection, it was…'

'A lot I'm sure' the doctor interjected' and you never told anyone? Never taught others how to do it? or told anyone what you were doing? Or left any notes?'

'Why no, I never write anything down and the last person I talked to was, well before you and the delightful Amy and Rory here, was Traddel Bodens 253, no 254 or was it? No it was 253: as I remember I saw him …'

'…So a long time' The Doctor said, back to his previous peevishness, with the tension gone from his face.

'And as you know Traddell is a bit anti-social and not much of a conversationalist, I'd barely said hello and asked how his hygrammphiums were doing before he had scuttled off…'

'Wait, you didn't talk to anyone for over 250 year?' Rory asked with disbelief, which he put in to the elongation of the 200, the 50 and the years flabbergasted, 'didn't you go insane?'

'Oh it's not that unusual, young man, when you've lived as long as I have you'll understand. We, time guardians, understand the importance of a long hard think before making a decision. That is if you want to make the right decision. A long rumination on anything from quantum physics to breakfast will produce the right answer. I remember once I spent two days deciding what I wanted for breakfast, now a few ridiculed me, but the crumpets I had were delicious'

The doctor here gave Amy a roll of the eye to say I told you so the most boring people in the universe.

'Tell me exactly how you escaped' The Doctor asked.

'Exactly', the time Guardian asked

'Enough, so I can ascertain how I'm going to clean up your mess.'

'Well I started with my observation on multiply universes. The conventional belief when it comes to alternate universes is that they split whenever a decision is made. However the question I'd put is why would you have ever made a different decision. Everything that has happened to you, everything that you are has made you make that decision. If you think of yourself a maze of thoughts, the thoughts you have trap you and encase every decision you makes, though thoughts are created by your reaction to the exterior world you life in. Do you ever find yourself repeating the same thoughts, forcing you to make similar decisions? In some ways your traveling down a path both created by you and for you.

'Even decision that seem vagary,' he continued, 'are completely logical you just haven't quantified the information however minute that you have absorbed and interoperated that made you make that decision or have that whim. Every chose made is relevant to environment, the things you see, hear, touch, taste, influence thoughts and feeling which dictate those choices'

'Isn't that Determinism' The Doctor asked 'that all decisions are predestined'

'Not at all. That would only be if there were some force that controlled all environment and was omnipotent enough to know how it would affect every being. Which is an impossible equation, as even the same event will have adifferent effect on two people. The simplest way to understand it is, character I suppose.'

The doctor smiled slyly. Amy looked slightly lost.

'Wait I'm confused' Amy chimed in 'so if everything mapped out then how are other dimension created? That's right, I am keeping up? '

'Almost' said the doctor.

'I hypothesized' the time guardian steadily strode into another monologue, 'that other dimensions would be created by chaos theory. The random probability taking place on a subatomic level. Two events that should cause the same environmental outcome but don't, like an asteroid that given trajectory, velocity, and resistance should hit a planet. In one universe it does and another it does not, through no sensible reason. The chaos creates two separate universes from one singular event.'

'Also I believe that in those moments of complete self-awareness that a split can happen. Of those moments one either forgets and in the fading of that awareness goes on and makes the same decision. Or they remember and it becomes a new part of their environment, but a new element to their environment completely created from themselves, in a true existential way. In that self projection of something completely from within a new world is created, a new dimension'

'Fascinating as this all is, how exactly does this all explain you being able to leave the time bubble?' the doctor asked, and not unrudely,

'Ah well I was getting there but I see you want to get straight to the crux of the matter, no dilly-dallying with you. It's simple really. The theory I has was this: that when one is looking it a mirror, that one is not looking at there own reflection but is in fact looking into an alternate dimension, but an alternative dimension identical to our own in every detail. That you are looking at another you, another you making the exact same decisions at the exact same time thinking the exact same thoughts. For if everything is the same, why would you be any different, why would you be doing anything else.'

Here Rory's eyes caught the Mirror to his left and he found himself looking at his reflection with some suspicion, he than looked away only to flick his eye's back as if he could catch himself out. He suddenly felt vey self-conscious.

'But that still doesn't explain how you escaped' the Doctor said.

'I'm almost there, hold your hollyhocks.' He said, 'now where was I, oh yes, now I'm looking in the mirror at another me, who is exactly the same. Now what I proposed was that if one could create a moment of self-awareness between the two selves. To become self aware of each other; that would create a universe split.'

'What you have to do is look at yourself in the mirror but not at you but at them and create a connection and start influencing their thoughts so that instead of two yous making the same movement at the same time it is they copying your movements. It's sort of like a dance, at first it would be you both making the same moves simultaneously, both choosing to move your hand to the left ands so forth. Eventually you would be in total sync with you movements, until eventually it would slightly change it would be you choosing to do something and they copy you. You would raise your hand in the air and they copy you just slightly out of sync. When that happens a new dimension is made and that schism creates a portal where the mirror was, a portal into another universe.'

'At first I thought it would only take me into the opposing universe but eventually I found if you looked into the crakes it could take you to all universes, and one could leave any reflecting device at any point in it history.'

Suddenly the time guardian poked his finger out and prodded Amy's breast, and hard.

'Hey' Rory cried out.

'Hey, that's my 'hey',' she said to Rory then turned to the time guardian and yelled, 'hey, what do you think your doing'

'Oh, I'm so sorry, I thought I'd phase through you, I keep thinking that, I keep thinking that I won't be able to touch anything in other dimensions, that I'll be incorporeal. That about the 3rd time I've thought that, even though I had lunch a couple of hours ago. What I need is something I can constantly touch, like a cane.'

'I think I have something for you' the doctor said and he rushed inside the Tardis. After concuthany of creaking cabinets and object hitting the floor and then an exclamation of joy with a sigh of dismissal and a few shrieks of terror and one distinct hiss followed by slamming doors The Doctor returned with a very fine and very old cane.

'For you' he said to the Time Guardian.

'Oh, that's too kind' he said with a distinct tear in his eye, 'is this a Gallifrey ormanity…'

'Yes it is, well it's been very interesting,' the doctor said 'now it seems like your set, you've got your own transportation, your new cane but we've really got to get going, important meeting and all. Don't we Amy.'

'Ah, Yes, very important, we wouldn't want to be late.' Amy edgily intoned with no small nudging from the doctor.

'So hate to love you and leave you, but we've got to run' so the Doctor said and entered the Tardis and quickly closed the door.

"Well goodbye' the time guardian humbled.

Then Amy came forth and said goodbye and gave him a brief hug with a warning to stop poking people. Rory manage to stop looking at himself or being looked at by himself and say goodbye, albeit distractedly.

The doctor started cranking up the Tardis as soon as the door had closed.

"I knew they're was a reason why I chose you' the Doctor congratulated Amy, who looked slightly befuddled, until the Doctor elaborated 'picking up my hint, we're practically psychic you and I, sorry Rory'

'It's Ok' Rory' distractedly mumbled.

'It wasn't like you were subtle' she said emphasizing 'subtle' without subtlety, ' I think you really hurt his feelings. I do think he knows you can't be late, you have a time machine.'

'Oh yes, that's the one draw back with a time machine you can't use that old adage 'I'm late for an appointment' to get a way. Anyway it doesn't matter'

'But weren't you interested in his escape'

'What that story, it's all codswollop, he must have been vacationing at the time and we just had the misfortune of running in to him, and if it is true he's right no one else is going to be trying it, and to be honest it was only going to get more boring. In fact you should be thanking me for saving you, any moment then he was about to invite himself for a fortnight. We got out just in time. And talking of time, what time do you want to go to now Amy, anywhere but 1488, always had trouble with that.'

'I've always wanted to go to, oh I don't know, 1488'


	3. Chapter 3

A house, supposedly the most haunted house in the year of 1488. The Doctor is in the Pantry, a haunted pantry at that, supposedly, looking for a ghost. Rory is in a bedroom, musty, old and poorly furnished decidedly not looking for a ghost. Amy, and Amy is in a corridor, long and isolated it is, and she is alone. She is about to pass a mirror.

Amy stops to look in the mirror thinking of what the stranger had said, was that another her? She looked the same but those weren't her eyes, the expression coming from them was so sad, sad yet full of hope, yet she felt nothing but giddy and full of food. Yet the sad look seemed to permeate her and a tear fell from her eye as it fell from the other Amy's eye, they cried together. She rubbed the tears from her eye and when she opened them she saw Amy, the other Amy climbing through the mirror. She wore the same clothes yet they looked more ragged, her face looked the same yet she wore a different expression: a sorrowful expression.

Once through the other Amy stood staring at the mirror and not at her. She moved away to the side to get a better look. Then other Amy spoke, she spoke to say her name.

'Amy, I have something to tell you and you'll listen this time'

Yet still she looked at the mirror and not at her, why not her. She couldn't help but feeling she was concealing something from her.

'Amy' she repeated, 'you have to trust me and you have to listen and listen carefully. You have to leave The Doctor, leave him now and go home. Home with Rory.'

And still she didn't look at her.

'No' she replied.

'You have to…'

'Why won't you look at me'?

'I can't, if I look away from the mirror the portal will begin to close and I'll have to leave. But you have to listen to me first'

'Why'

'Because what I'm going to tell you is important. I'm you from an alternate universe in the future and I'm telling you to give up flying with The Doctor, give up being that girl flying through time and space with a mad man in a box, or give up Rory. Because if you stay Rory will die'

'No he won't' Amy said' Rory won't die, if your from the future tell me how Rory dies and I'll stop it.'

'It doesn't work like that'

'It does, it's like that man said, isn't it. If I become aware of how things will happen then I can make different decision, decisions that will stop Rory from being killed. Just by telling me you've already saved him. I'll choose what I wasn't going to choose before and we'll go somewhere, somewhen else and Rory will be fine, that's how it works. I know it, Rory will be fine.'

'Do you love Rory.' other Amy asked.

'Always' she instinctively replied.

Then the other Amy turned to Amy and the look she gave her was one that filled Amy's heart with the greatest despair. Her heart could not contain that grief and tears fell from her eyes although she knew not why she cried.

'I have to go' the other Amy said.

Just before she vanished through the mirror she called back but Amy could not quite make out what she said. Although she thought is was 'leave him'.

Amy wiped the tears from her eyes and when she returned to the Tardis the pain had been wiped from her heart and she thought all she needed to do was make a different decision.

'Where do you want to go to next Amelia Pond' the Doctor asked her.


	4. Chapter 4

Rory is dead. Amy is grieving. Amy believes she can cross over stop Rory from dying, stop herself from having caused it. Her Rory wouldn't be saved but one similar, with the same smile and the same love for her, one who had danced the Macarena before there first kiss. Amy Knew she could do it, knew she could cross over and knew she could save Rory.

'So how did you manage to get past Amy away from the mirror' River asked

'It was an ingenious idea' The Doctor smirked, River raised an eye brow and the Doctor quailed 'ok I just shouted out to meet me in the pantry, where she'll find me'

'Now you've changed time where will Amy cross over aren't the universes suppose to be exactly the same?'

'They are the same, just a little out of sync.' He explained, 'Time travel can make things a bit wibbily wobbly, and this is a very wobbly situation'

River raised her eyebrow as if to say that answer was unacceptable and The Doctor knew it.

'The two universe have become intertwined, I don't think this is the first time we're having this conversation and this isn't the first time Amy's been through that Mirror. One leads to the other.'

'So why is Amy doing this if it won't change anything? That is what your saying, although I don't think your right.'

The Doctor stood still for once and when he continued still he remained and into Rivers eyes he looked firm, as if he had been touch by something.

'We are who we are at any given moment and in that moment we couldn't have made any other decision because who we are dictates the choices we make. There's a truth that if you were omnipotent, know everything about everything and everyone you could predict the future. Only it's impossible to know it all. Even if you spent all o time with one being you could never fully know them, you could never fully know yourself. But if you know enough of the base ingredients you can make pretty accurate assumptions. Despite the fact I know the future and therefore am cheating, I could accurately assume humans will have another war. The predicate are humans are greedy, myopic and divided and countries create antagonism and competiveness.

Let me try an experiment: I bet I can tell you what you'll say next'

'Bet you can't', thus River spoke.

'Bet you can't', thus spoke the doctor simultaneously.

"That's cheating' she cooed.

'Yes, yes it is. But it's still a valid point. I know enough about you to predict what you'll say. I know you're confrontational and like to play games. In this instance I just controlled the circumstances.

'But I won't say that next time'

'Of course not' he brisked, 'you'll remember this conversation and say something else'

'So what your point'

'My point is; that nothing's changed for Amy, the circumstances are the same, and always will be. You asked why Amy is doing this. Amy hasn't figured it out yet. She still believes, and she will always believe, she can change the outcome, Save Rory.

In the air The Doctor draws a figure 8 as if showing the loop over two universes.

'Amy and Rory forever' he breathed.

Then silence fell. It was a silence in which nothing happened and nothing changed and lasted until River broke it with a question.

'So what does it mean?'

'For one the Tardis will never be able to return to this time. The rest, I don't know.'

Amy returned to the Tardis where the Doctor waited outside the door. She felt numb and dreaded the onset of emotions which she was sure she would be crush under, her tears would dehydrate her until her skin was dry and she looked a thousand years old, and her sorrow would grind her bones to dust but she was sure it would be her love that would kill her, pumping caustic longing from her heart. Yet here he was, her raggedy Doctor with his hand stretched out asking her if she'd run with him.

She didn't know what she would choose.

here...


End file.
